


My Favorite Hufflepuff

by lar_laughs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, During Harry Potter era, Every Slytherin has a pet Hufflepuff, F/F, M/M, life at hogwarts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26097589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: Fate throws two girls together. Hogwarts tries to tear them apart.
Relationships: Hufflepuff/Slytherin - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	My Favorite Hufflepuff

**Author's Note:**

> This is a character study based on the Hufflepuff/Slytherin POV skits by various people on Tik Tok. I did a little role reversal and switched up the Houses at the last minute.
> 
> The relationship, other than friendship, is not in this chapter...

Life at Aunt Mirabelle’s house was torturous for Per in the year without Max. It wasn’t just that she knew the rest of the family was staring at her with questioning concern as they waited to see if she would get her letter to Hogwarts. It wasn’t even that she was expected to carry a heavier burden of life on the farm.

The worst part of the situation was not being able to see her best friend every waking moment of the day. Not being able to tuck into her side of the bed every night and know that Max was on the other side. No matter that they were somewhere relatively safe now, they still slept back to back, protecting the other even in sleep.

She felt very lost and alone without the girl she thought of as her sister. They weren’t blood related. They didn’t even come from the same part of Europe. They’d met for the first time when Per was 5 and Max was 6, both of them sitting on hard chairs outside the child welfare office. Both sets of parents had died in the same train accident years before except, they learned later, it hadn’t really been a train accident. Even though they’d both been told it had been a derailment, they learned later it had been part of a skirmish between wizards.

On that fateful day, they were being turned over to a new home. Max was prone to fits of violence and had been asked to be reassigned for the second time. Per, on the other hand, was mute and it was thought a change of scenery might do her some good.

When they’d been left alone by the nervous young woman with the rather glazed expression. Max turned to Per with a glare. “You don’t talk?”

Per shrugged, her tangled curls already dull and lackluster in the too-bright light of the hallway.

“You don’t know or you never have?”

This time she contemplated the question. It was a new one. Finally, she nodded as an answer to both sides of the question. When it looked like Max wasn’t going to ask any more questions, she went back to her quiet contemplation of the picture across the hallway.

Even though Max wasn’t asking any questions, the tanned girl was still staring intently at this enigma seated beside her. During the entire trip to their new home, Max didn’t take her eyes off Per. When they were instructed on how to step into the fireplace and yell out the destination, Max firmly took Per’s hand.

“I’ll go with her. She can’t say the words. How will she get there otherwise?” Before anyone could tell her otherwise, she was dragging the smaller girl into the opening and then out the other side.

“You made it through together?” the smiling man on the other side asked. “I didn’t think anyone was able to do that.”

“Why shouldn’t we?” Max demanded, her free hand on her hip. “We’re sisters. We do everything together.”

Per nodded, accepting that her fate was now linked with the bold and brash girl who had decided to keep her.

***

Max didn’t come home that first winter break. The younger children, except Per, had all come down with a strange flu that had been rampant in that area of the countryside. It was decided it would be safer if all the older children from the farm stayed at school. For three days, Per stood in front of the fireplace. If there had been any Floo Powder to spare, she would have found a way to get to Max even though she’d been told repeatedly there was no way to Floo to the school. Where there was a will....

That was the reason there was a just-turned-eleven year old girl waiting all alone for the Hogwarts train when it pulled into the station, brimming with the children eager to be home for the summer holidays. She wasn’t with an adult but that didn’t seem to bother her. If she stood a little too closer to the edge of the platform, staring intently down the track, it wasn’t commented on by the rail guards.

“What are you doing here?” Max asked with a frown when she saw the smaller girl. 

Her hair looked different but that was the only different Per could see as she just smiled and held out her hand. Max stared at it for a moment before sighing and sliding her hand into place.

Just like that, nothing had changed. The sisters were together again.

***  
“You’ll have to talk at school. Charms, especially. It’s all verbal. What are you going to do then?”

It was two days before they would both board the train to go to Hogwarts. Max had spent the summer telling Per exactly what she could expect from her classes and, most importantly, the Hufflepuff Common Room.

“It’s not like I can’t talk.” Per’s voice was quiet but steady. “I talk to you all the time.”

“To me! You’ll have to talk to other people. You’ll be in your own dorm room, remember?”

“But we’ll see each other in the Common Room. And at meals.” Per stood up suddenly, the bowl of snapped peas in her lap flying toward the trash pile. “You’re going to let me eat with you, right?”

After rescuing most of the finished produce, Max reached out a hand to pull Per back down beside her. “We’re sisters. Of course you’re going to eat meals with me. And we’ll sit together at Quidditch matches.”

“What did you tell your friends about me?”

“Friends?” Max just rolled her eyes. “I don’t need any friends. I have you.”

***  
Per had always thought Max was lying about not having friends at school. On the train ride, not a single person acknowledged Max’s presence. She sat quietly in the corner of their compartment, watching as Per found out the name of everyone that glanced in their direction.

“So many Gryffindors,” she whispered toward Max, her throat sore from her attempts at finding her sister a friend. It alarmed her that no one seemed to know who Max was. How was that possible?

When Max just shrugged, Per frowned at her. “Why aren’t there any Hufflepuffs coming by?”

“Probably because they’re all huddled together in the front of the train. That’s where they like to sit.”

Per was up and moving before Max could reach out a hand to stop her. She glanced up and down the carriage hall, trying to figure out which way was front without staring out the window. The speed that the scenery was going by made her feel slightly nauseous. 

“We should go up there. You should be with your friends.”

“They’re not my friends,” Max growled, her face settling into a scowl the likes of which would scare anyone that walked by. “I told you that. I don’t need friends.”

“Everyone needs friends. Who do you sit next to in class?”

“The person who sits down next to me.” Max crossed her arms over her chest, slouching against the seat as she tried not to look back at Per’s incredulous stare. “You’re overthinking this, Persephone. Friends are a waste of time.”

“No, degnoming the garden is a waste of time. Friends are important.”

“How would you know? Neither of us had friends at Aunt Mirabelle’s. Why are they suddenly so important at school?”

Per sank back down in the cushion on her side of the compartment. She wasn’t sure why they were important. It just seemed right in her head. At school, friends would be important.

But, she reasoned, she would be there with Max now. She would find them both friends.

***

The hat hung low over her forehead so Per couldn’t see the crowd of kids in front of her. She’d seen Max, though, as she’d stood in line. When she’d heard Professor McGonagal call out “Persephone Fletcher”, she’d rushed right up to the stage and gave her sister a little wave before sitting down.

And now, she barely listened to the long, drawn out monologue in her head as the hat talked of all the ways she’d be a benefit to any of the houses. There was only one House she wanted to be in, though.

“Slytherin.”

Wait.

That wasn’t the right House.

Before she could grab the hat and demand a redo, she was being ushered toward the table with the green and silver banner. Panic settled deep in the pit of her stomach as she caught sight of Max’s horrified expression but then she was surrounded by a wall of students who were not her sister and were not wearing black and yellow ties.

**

“You have to fix this.”

Per tugged at Max’s hand but she was refusing to back away from the row of professors at the long table. She felt the same need to rectify the wrong but this didn’t feel right. None of the adults seemed at all phased by the impassioned plea to redo Per’s sorting.

Professor Snape, the head of Slytherin, turned his cold gaze from one girl to the other, finally landing on Per. “If she wants to change houses so badly, she should be the one to ask.”

“Ask him,” Max hissed, her face alight with sudden hope. “Ask him to change to Hufflepuff.”

The teacher gave her a cold smile as she found it impossible to move forward. Even more impossible to open her mouth. “I see you don’t have the courage for Gryffindor. Or the intelligence for Ravenclaw. I suppose we’ll have to keep you in Slytherin if you’re too dull-witted to understand the opportunity you’re being offered.”

“Per? Say something. This is your chance.” When she didn’t say anything, Max growled and threw down her hand. “Fine. Be like that.”

For the second time in her life, Per watched Max walk away from her.

***  
There weren’t many good places in the castle where a small girl could hide away and cry. Every time Per tried, someone found her and dragged her back to the Common Room.

Even the ghosts were starting to rat her out if they came across her. “It’s that tiny girl. She’s crying again. Someone really should do something,” the Fat Friar fretted every time he saw her huddled in the corridor across from the picture of the bowl of fruit.

If Max happened to see her, she quickly averted her eyes and walked away. The other Hufflepuff students weren’t comfortable in such close proximity to a Slytherin student so they didn’t stop to find out if she was alright.

Her own House wasn’t much better. They all had their own problems to worry about. Adding a student who clearly didn’t want to be a part of their lives just made her a slight irritation. If they had to deal with her, they did so with a sigh. Mostly, they ignored her.

Until the day she refused to be ignored. The library was normally a quiet spot to sit in contemplation of her lot in life. On this particular day, it was starting to fill with students who were suddenly conscious of their need of knowledge. The Ravenclaws had arrived en masse, taking up most of the good cubicles and all the comfortable chairs. A group of older Slytherin, led by the shifty-eyed Quidditch captain, Marcus Flint, arrived. Unfortunately ,the table they wanted was occupied by several First Year students with a definite height and weight disadvantage.

“Let us have this table,” Flint growled.

“We were here first,” one of the students stammered. The sound of his fear drew Per’s attention away from her own misery.

“And we’re here now.” Marcus pushed over a stack of books, sending it crashing to the slate tile floor. “Wouldn’t want to get kicked out of the library. Madame Pence won’t let you back in for the rest of the term.”

The First Years glanced at each other, silently deciding if it was worth the beating they were sure to get if they stood their ground. One of the boys reached for his school bag, ready to give up.

Something inside Per snapped. She jumped to her feet, her fists clenched at her sides. “Get away from the table, Flint, and find your own.”

Marcus glanced around to see who was disrupting his game. When he saw the color of her robes, he smirked. “Aren’t you out of line, squirt?”

“No. You are.” Her chin raised several inches only because she felt the sudden need to look much taller and broader than she really was, especially when one of the boy’s stepped toward her.

“Say that again?” the Slytherin boy asked, his smile almost feral with the joy of this new game. “I don’t think we heard you correctly.”

“You heard her, Belby.” Max was suddenly beside her, her height a definite advantage in this confrontation. “I just sent a message to Professor Pence. She should be here shortly. She’s not going to like the fact that you’re messing with the Ravenclaws, especially the First Years. You know she prefers having the Claws around to you Snakes.”

“What are you doing here, Max? Shouldn’t you be helping the house elves in the kitchen?” All the boys began to laugh at Marcus and his very unfunny joke. “They’re going to miss all your help if you have a busted arm.”

Max cracked her knuckles as she took a step forward, edging in front of Per. “And wouldn’t it be a shame if you couldn’t play Quidditch this year because you had a busted head?”

The threat stung a little as it landed but would have been easily shaken off if Professor Pence hadn’t shown up, her mouth set in a grim line as she threw out all the offenders, Slytherin and Hufflepuff alike. The Ravenclaw First Years followed sedately after the group, clearly done studying in public for the foreseeable future now that it was clear they weren’t going to get any protection from the older Ravenclaw students.

As Marcas and his group turned the corner that would take them out to the Quidditch pitch, Max pulled Per in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” Per asked as she let herself be drug along.

Max didn’t say anything as they climbed the stairs up one of the towers. She tried to figure out where they were but she was still very unfamiliar with the castle layout and could only guess that they were somewhere near the Astronomy Tower.

When they arrived at the small door set back in a dark hall, Per pulled her hand away. “I should go back and let someone know that Marcus was acting up. Sonja will want to deal with this before it gets out of hand.”

“Sonja? The Head Girl? You think she’ll protect you from Marcus and his gang? Not likely.”

Per stared at the tips of her shoes as she tried to think of something else to say. As always, the words just tangled up with all the emotions that were rolling around inside.

As Max swung the door open, she glanced back over her shoulder. “Come on, Per. You can talk to Sonja later. Come see my surprise.”

“Surprise? What surprise?” But she walked in the room without another thought.

Light streamed all around. This was one of the tiny rooms that stuck out from the tower, lined with windows on almost all sides. The view of the lake was fantastic. In the distance, she would see a few of the tentacles of the Giant Squid as it froliced in the autumnal sunshine.

“Like it? I found it earlier this week. There’s a divan in one of the rooms below that I thought we could carry up here. I don’t dare do it myself.”

“It’s a simple enough spell to move it without too much effort.” Per frowned at her. “You’re a Second Year. Don’t you know it yet?”

Max’s cheeks reddened. “I’m not good at Charms,” she muttered.

“You? Not good at Charms? Isn’t that what Hufflepuff is known for? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought maybe I could get better before you found out. I’ve been practicing but...”

Per gave her sister a wide smile. “Now that I’m here, I can help you. Surprisingly, I’m very good at Charms.”

“Of course you are.” Max rolled her eyes but smiled back. “You don’t think they’ll get mad at you for hanging out with a Hufflepuff?”

“No. I’ll tell them you’re my favorite Hufflepuff. What are they going to do? Kick me out? I’ve already tried every possible way I can think of to get myself put into another House. I’m sure Snape will find this just as ‘charming’ as all my other attempts. Will you be okay if you’re seen with me?”

Max slipped her hand into Per’s. “What choice do I have? I’m your favorite Hufflepuff.”


End file.
